Thursday, November 1, 2012

Back to warm floors.

But, before I say too much else, it’s A HOLIDAY!

Big whoop.

Travelling Companion went in to work anyway, and she’ll likely take the day off another time. She seemed to think she’d be the only one there, but that’s OK since she was looking forward to having a nice quiet time to tidy up a few loose ends.

Halloween in these parts isn’t that much of a big deal, although there were a few parties here and there throughout the city. Nothing to do with the kids though, this was only for the adults. There’s no such thing as “Trick or Treat”. I guess that’s strictly a North American thing. I’m OK with that. So today is “All Saint’s Day”, which somehow translates into being a holiday. It’s a mystery, but obviously has something to do with the Catholic Church, and the somewhat waning influence it has over which days folks get to stay home.

I did see a protest out on Mariahilfer last night right around the time that T.C. was trying to get home. They were protesting *wait for it*, “The Horror of Capitalism”. I had to laugh. Bunch of fools. I’m afraid that, without capitalism, they wouldn’t have had the vehicles to drive that they were using, for one thing.

I think we need to reintroduce these kinds of videos into the school curriculum these days. We’re losing touch with the basics.

It’s a bit of a long one at 11:36, but kinda cute.

We’ve had the heat of here for a few weeks I suppose, and one of the things I’ll truly miss when we finally get out of Dodge, is how both of the bathrooms have nice warm floors. Not only do we have hydronic heating, but the builder also managed to run the pipes under the tiles, in addition to the towel warming type of convectors hanging on the walls.

This kind of thing:

So I’ve been scheming about installing such a critter in our upstairs bathroom at home, along with some sort of under floor heating arrangement. Now, I realise that it might get complicated, and I’ll possibly need to have some sort of mixing valve set up to keep from having the floor be too darned toasty, but I’ll figure it out. Either that, or I’ll pipe in the towel warmer, and then go with some sort of electric under floor heating arrangement. It’s all doable.

This thing is, not only do we really enjoy the warmer floors on the tootsies in the morning, but the bathroom I’m referring to on that floor of the house back home is over the garage! So…I can’t really quantify this, but let’s just say, it’s not the warmest room in the house. And I’m pretty sure a bathroom should be right up there when it comes to a place where you might want to be comfortable, when you need to ‘let it all hang out’?

There’s something about shivering when sitting there that takes me right back to the bad old days on the farm. I’d just as soon not be reminded.

Speaking of bathrooms. Oh, have you figured out that there’s sweet bugger all going on today? Right.

Yes, bathrooms.

Got a phone call the other day (the 29th) from Daughter Number One, enquiring about the ins and outs of using my wet vac. Huh? It wasn’t like she wasn’t about to explain what that was all about, but she certainly piqued my interest.

It turns out that it had nothing to do with Hurricane Sandy. As a matter of fact, we have had no issues with the tail end of Sandy. No, she was calling from work by that point, which meant it was the middle of the afternoon here in Wienerland, to relate a little tale of woe regarding a burst pipe in an upstairs bathroom at her house. Fortunately, she wasn’t the last one to leave the house that morning, as it could have been much worse. Her cousin happened to hear some sort of hissing sound, to then discover copious amounts of water gushing out onto the bathroom floor. As luck would have it, she knew exactly where the water shut off was, and sorted that out right quick.

I’ve ‘been there and done that’ with gushing water. It ain’t fun. And even if you don’t panic, you do need to act expeditiously. You like that word?

At this point I don’t know any more of the details, except that a plumber has indeed been on the scene, as well as a contractor, and there have been speaks with the insurance company. I think it was kind of “not good”? So much for the wet vac, and “Welcome to Home Ownership”!

We’ll probably find out more on the weekend, since that whole time difference makes telephone conversations a bit of a challenge. I’m not sure whom they would have called for a plumber, and when she asked whom I would have called well, I’m the plumber at our house, so that wasn’t of much help.

I didn’t think they wanted to wait a couple days for me to get there either.

I suppose I’ve made you move your eyes back and forth quite enough at this point. Time to stop.

Can I have those heated thingies in my new RV? Seriously, we had it all back in Norway, based on electrical heating - not the water thing and not in our RV but in the house. But it was toasty. Real nice in the morning. You see our bedroom was soooo cold. And then you got into that toasty bathroom. Aah... what a feel!

Well, I've been getting too many spam comments showing up. Just a drag, so we'll go another route and hope that helps. So, we won't be hearing anything more from Mr. Nony Moose. I guess I'll just have to do without that Gucci purse.